International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 2016, 16, 1, 13-22

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A Developmental-Behavioral Analysis of Lying

Mitch J. Fryling*
California State University, Los Angeles, USA

Abstract
Lying is a common behavior in society and causes a number of problems in social
relationships, the workplace, political affairs, and more. Most often, individuals who lie are
considered to be liars and are therefore held responsible for their behavior. Unfortunately,
the practice of assuming that the individual is responsible for engaging in lying behavior
prevents an understanding of the context that supports the development and persistence
of lying. As an alternative, the current paper considers contextual-behavioral factors
that contribute to the development and maintenance of lying during both childhood and
adulthood. In doing so, the unique features of lying as a target behavior are described,
and specific targets for prevention and intervention are identified. The detection of lies is
given specific attention, highlighting both conceptual and applied issues.
Key words: behavior analysis, honesty, lying, truth telling.

Novelty and Significance

What is already known about the topic?
• Relatively little has been said about the topic of lying within behavior analysis. What has been said has focu-
sed on Skinner’s (1957) verbal operants, and elaborated on various types of lying.
What this paper adds?
• The current paper adds to the small amount of work on the topic by identifying the unique features of lying as
a target behavior, considering factors that contribute to lying across the lifespan, pointing to targets for both
prevention and intervention, and finally, commenting on conceptual issues related to the behavioral analysis
of lying and in particular the detection of lies.

Lying is a behavior that seems common throughout various cultures, ages,

settings, and more. Lying also seems to be associated with several societal problems;
it often disrupts social relationships, causes problems in the workplace, and corrupts
politics, for examples. Most often, however, individuals who engage in lying behavior
are considered to be liars, whereby the problem of lying is considered to reside within
the individual. Following from this, the individual is to be held responsible for their
lying behavior. In this sense, a consideration of environmental factors that lead to the
development and persistence of lying is bypassed, as the problem of lying is assumed
to reside within the individual.
A behavior-analytic alternative to this conceptualization is to consider lying not
as something that develops and occurs within an individual, but rather, as a behavior-
environment relationship that develops as a function of factors in the environmental
context. The behavioral approach to lying is supported by operant research on the topic,
which has shown that both non-human (Lanza, Starr, & Skinner, 1982) and human (Sato
& Sugiyama, 1994) animals will lie when the context supports this behavior. On a
practical level the behavior analytic alternative permits an analysis of factors that might
*
Correspondence concerning this article: California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Dr., Los Angeles,
CA 90032. Email: Mitchell.Fryling2@calstatela.ed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the European
Association for Behavior Analysis conference in Stockholm, Sweden, September 2014.
14 Fryling

be manipulated to prevent the development of lying and reduce its persistence over
time. Given the prevalence and importance of this behavior, this alternative approach
seems well worth considering. Interestingly, however, relatively little behavior analytic
work has been done in this area.
Skinner (1957) considered the topic of lying when he described distorted tacts.
While distorted tacts pertain to some stretching of stimulus control, with respect to
lying specifically Skinner (1957, p. 149) stated “In a still greater distortion a response is
emitted under circumstances which normally control an incompatible response. We call
the response a lie.” Parsons (1989) elaborated on the behavior analytic approach to lying
and considered the many circumstances in which verbal behavior might be considered a
lie. For example, Parsons considered the multiple functions that lies may have, including
the extent to which lies may be distorted tacts (as described above) or mands, as when
one emits a threatening lie to manipulate the listener’s behavior. Moreover, Parsons
distinguished between the sort of lying that involves deliberate falsification as well as
that which occurs unknowingly, as when the speaker makes a mistake. In addition, the
difference between concealment (omitting something) and lying was also considered.
Interestingly, Parsons also pointed to the ever-present role of lying in society, and how
lies may even be necessary and not always harmful.
Given that lying can consist of a range of behaviors and situations (Parsons,
1989; Sato & Sugiyama, 1994, p. 165) it is important to be clear about the focus of
the paper. The current paper focuses on the sort of lying that Parsons described as
deliberate falsification, as when someone engages in a behavior that is not accurate,
and does so knowingly (i.e., with some element of “intention”). Importantly, then, the
current paper does not focus on lies that are considered appropriate or instances when
someone lies accidently. The specific aims of the current paper are to build upon the
existing behavior analytic literature in this area by focusing on the unique features of
lying as a target behavior, and to provide a more broad comprehensive consideration of
lying across the lifespan. Moreover, the current paper will consider conceptual issues
related to the behavior analysis of lying. As the paper considers contextual-behavioral
factors that participate in lying during both childhood and adulthood, the analysis may
be considered a developmental-behavioral analysis. Consistent with these developmental
aims, lying during childhood will be considered first.

Lying in Childhood

It is perhaps not surprising that lying may develop very early in a child’s life.
Early in childhood, most behavior is reinforced by immediate, direct-acting contingencies.
Children learn to grab food and this is reinforced with access to food, to steal toys from
their peers when nobody is looking, and more, and these behaviors are immediately
reinforced (e.g., with food and toys). In this sense, much of the young child’s behavior
may be considered impulsive. Indeed, as the past and future are both considered verbal
constructs (Hayes, 1992), pre-verbal children may be especially likely to behave
impulsively. However, as children develop a more sophisticated verbal repertoire (i.e.,
they begin to respond with respect to various derived stimulus relations), the potential

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for lies to develop becomes more apparent. Indeed, as lying involves the participation
of both the past and the future by way of derived stimulus relations, the potential for
lying may correspond to the development of specific language skills.
The contingencies supporting the lying repertoire in childhood seem straight-
forward; children learn to lie to avoid aversive stimulation. Consistent with the previous
example, a parent may see an empty cookie jar and ask their child “Did you take the
cookies?” If the child says yes they may be punished, as when the parent responds by
saying “I told you no cookies, you’re going to time-out!”. At a minimum, admitting
the stealing may be met with further instruction; for example a parent might say “I told
you not to take the cookies. They are for everyone, not just you…..” Alternatively, if
the child lies (e.g., says “No”), the child may “get away with it.” In other words, lying
about taking the cookies may be reinforced by avoiding punishment or aversive reme-
diation. As can be seen from this brief example, lying in these sort of circumstances
seems especially likely to develop without deliberate attention to prevent it.

Prevention of Lying

There are at least a couple of areas of the behavior-analytic literature that seem
relevant to the prevention of a lying repertoire. One of them is presented in Skinner’s
(1971) text Beyond Freedom and Dignity. In this text, Skinner distinguishes between
behavior that is for the good of the individual, behavior that is for the good of others,
and, finally, behavior that is for the good of the group or culture. Skinner also emphasizes
how much of the behavior that seems good for the individual is not good for others,
and perhaps even less likely to be good for the culture. In this seminal text, where
Skinner calls for the design of a culture, he argues that it is the cultures responsibility
to design contingencies that support behavior for the good of others and the group.
Skinner’s argument is that in the absence of specific design individuals would likely
continue to behave for the good of themselves, whereby the wellness of others and the
culture more generally would be in jeopardy.
Lying seems to be a type of behavior related to Skinner’s (1971) analysis.
Indeed, lies often seem to be behavior that could be considered good for the individual,
and at the same time harmful to others and the group more generally. For example,
a child might lie about stealing something, and this might help the child access more
positive reinforcers and avoid punishment, though the group may experience some loss
or harm (the individual or group who had the item stolen from them loses the item,
and, the culture has fewer resources and is at heightened risk for future instances of
the behavior). More broadly, when an individual consumes too much of a particular
resource the group’s access to that resource is lessened in some way. Consistent with
Skinner’s analysis, then, it seems that it falls on the culture to develop practices that
condition behaviors that are for the good of others and the group as reinforcers. A
number of areas of the behavior analytic research literature, both basic and applied,
might be related to the prevention of lies. For example, the topics of cooperation and
sharing seem central to preventing the development of a lying repertoire (e.g., Hake,
Olvera, & Bell, 1975; Marzullo-Kerth, Reeve, Reeve, & Townsend, 2011; Schmid &

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Hake, 1983). These research literatures might inform strategies that can be developed
and evaluated to prevent the development of lying.
An additional area of the behavior-analytic literature that seems related to the
prevention of lies is correspondence training. A number of behavior analysts have studied
interventions aimed at increasing correspondence between what one says they did and
what they did, and likewise, between what they actually did and what they said they
did. In general, this body of research has shown that individuals can learn to accurately
describe their behavior when accurate descriptions are reinforced. Within the research
literature these correspondence relations have been described as Say-Do, Do-Say, Say-
Do-Say, and so on (e.g., Osnes, Guevremont, & Stokes, 1987; Risley & Hart, 1968).
While perhaps not directly targeting lying per se, the correspondence training literature
seems to be related to the development of truth-telling repertoires. In this sense, one way
to prevent the development of lying might be to thoroughly condition correspondence
relations, truth-telling, as a conditioned reinforcer during childhood.
While it is important to consider strategies that might be used to prevent the
development of lying, it is also important to consider how to respond to lies, and the
difficulty in doing so.

Intervention for Lying

As with all behavior, responding to any instance of lying requires the observation
of the behavior. While this may seem obvious, this is mentioned because lying is a
behavior that seems to present specific challenges regarding observation. While all
behavior occurs in a context, lying requires the observation of a particular sequence
of events over time. In other words, lying doesn’t occur in moments. Indeed, whether
or not a response might be categorized as a lie depends not only on the form of the
response (e.g., “No, I did not”), but upon what happened before the response as well. For
example, in considering the child who stole cookies from the cookie jar and later reported
“no” when her mother asked her if she stole the cookies, the parent can only intervene
upon this behavior with certainty if they have observed the entire sequence of events.
In other words, without actually observing the entire sequence (e.g., the child stealing
and later saying “no” upon being questioned about it), observing, and thus intervening
upon this behavior may be difficult. By contrast, most other challenging behaviors are
observed rather easily; they do not involve the observation of sequences of events. A
parent can observe their child’s aggression or swearing when it occurs, for example.
Thus, with lying it is not the behavior itself that is the problem, but rather, the
behavior occurring with respect to particular contextual conditions (e.g., saying “no”
when the child in fact did steal the cookies). To reiterate, the detection of lies depends
upon observing a sequence of events. Given this, the failure to observe the details of
a child’s repertoire over time should be considered a risk factor for the development
of a lying repertoire. That is, caregivers who do not observe their children may permit
the development of a lying repertoire. Presumably, when lying is observed it can be
responded to with common behavioral reduction procedures.
It is important to highlight that the analysis thus far is consistent with the
assumption that it is not individuals who are liars; rather, it is the context that supports
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the development of a lying repertoire. The consideration of lying in childhood from a

behavior analytic perspective has led to the identification of some fairly straightforward
intervention targets. Generally, a goal of childhood is to establish lying as aversive and
truth telling as a reinforcer. Given what has been described above, this requires the
observation of sequences of behavioral events. Indeed, children who are not supervised
closely may learn to lie very quickly. Thus, preventing and responding to lying during
childhood requires specific attention and planning on behalf of caregivers.
Of course, lying is not merely a childhood phenomena; some of the most
socially troublesome lies occur in adulthood. Moreover, the context in which adults live
becomes increasingly complicated relative to that of children. Therefore, the following
section focuses on factors that contribute to the development and persistence of lying
in adulthood.

Lying in Adulthood

The context in which adults lie, while building upon experiences in childhood,
is sufficiently distinct in its complexity that it warrants specific attention. Consistent
with our analysis thus far, it seems most obvious that lying may occur in adulthood
because it has not been sufficiently conditioned as an aversive stimulus condition. In
lay terms, some adults may lie because they never learned that lying was “bad”. Then,
in keeping with the definition of an aversive stimulus, lying is not a stimulus condition
that is avoided. Following from this, if lying is not avoided the only remaining features
of the lying context pertain to the positive and negative reinforcers available for lying;
both direct and derived. This circumstance makes instances of lying seem rather likely.
Similarly, not all child rearing environments value what Skinner (1971) called behaving
for the good of others. That is, perhaps behaviors which were for the good of others,
such as truth telling, were never thoroughly reinforced, and therefore truth telling was not
established as a conditioned reinforcer. In this sense there is no experience of positive
or negative reinforcers, either directly or indirectly, for telling the truth.
Beyond these general factors, it is also important to consider the fact that the
stimuli avoided and reinforcers available seem to become related to more and more
things in adulthood. More specifically, as stimuli avoided and reinforcers available
participate in more and more derived stimulus relations, circumstances in general become
increasingly substitutional (see Dymond & Rehfeldt, 2003; L. Hayes, 1992a; S. Hayes,
Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001; and Sidman, 2000 for accounts of this process) in
adulthood. For example, adults lie to avoid losing their jobs, to maintain marriages, to
continue affairs, to get promoted, and more. Indeed, these factors are related to other
things as well, such as the loss of a home, financial status, retirement plans, and child
rearing arrangements. Moreover, various factors may interact and conflict as when one is
participating in an affair and keeping a job with their wife’s father, or having an affair
with their spouses sibling. All of this makes lying especially complex in adulthood,
supports its occurrence, and therefore makes truth telling less likely.

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Observing Lies in Adulthood

As noted earlier, detecting lying requires the observation of a sequence of events.

Interestingly, during childhood caregivers often surround children, and much of the
child’s response patterns are therefore observed. This situation changes drastically over
time, as children grow older, and is particularly distinct by adulthood, as the adult’s
life is rarely observed so closely. To make things even more complicated, some adults
may avoid having people around them at certain times, probably especially while doing
things that would later require lying. Likewise, adults can inform others of events in
their life selectively, withhold information, construct alternative stories, and more. In
this sense, during adulthood in particular, lies seem likely to occur without anyone ever
knowing. Indeed, some of the most “honest” people may actually just be very good
liars, or they may seem to be very honest in the right audience contexts. The dynamics
of these situations cannot be understated, and they highlight how complicated the lying
context can become in adulthood.
In addition to the pervasive problems of observation in adulthood, the observer
of the lie can also be asked to “prove it”. In other words, even when lies are observed
(i.e., the entire behavioral sequence is observed), the observer may be required to “prove”
that the lie has happened. This can be difficult, of course. Moreover, accusing someone
of lying may often be punished, and there can be other factors influencing the desire for
one to see the presumed liar confronted (e.g., having someone lose a work promotion).
In short, the accuser may be asked to prove that they are not lying themselves.
Finally, liars may learn to avoid observing their own behavior. As described by
Skinner (1953, pp. 290-291) in a chapter on the self, individuals may fail to observe
previously punished classes of behavior because observing such behavior is an aversive
stimulus condition. Consistent with this, even if lying were to be conditioned as aversive,
individuals may learn to escape and avoid the aversive stimulation associated with lying
by failing to observe their own behavior. In this sense, lying might occur without the
individual who is engaging in the lie themselves even knowing. (The term knowing as
used here refers to describing one’s own actions; also see Fryling, Johnston, & Hayes,
2011). This phenomenon may be involved with situations where a lie is obviously detected
by an observer, and when the individual engaging in the lie really is not aware that the
lie has happened. All of this combined with the large negative and positive reinforcers
available for lying seem to make it an especially common and difficult behavior in
adulthood.
The consideration of lying in adulthood points to the importance of the prevention
of lying. This seems to be an important area for research in behavior analysis, especially
if truth telling is valued by the culture (Skinner, 1971). In addition to emphasizing
prevention in childhood, it is important to create contexts where lying is not made likely
in adulthood. Along these lines social, educational, and vocational/cultural systems may
be developed to prevent lying (Biglan, 1995, 2015; Glenn, 2004; Skinner, 1948, 1971).
The growing body of experimental literature on the metacontingency may provide some
methodological foundations for further exploration in this area (e.g., Borba, Tourinho,
& Glenn, 2014).

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Describing contextual-behavioral factors that participate in lying during both

childhood and adulthood has been the focus of the paper thus far. The topic of lying is
also related to several important conceptual issues, however, and the following section
focuses on those issues specifically.

Conceptual Considerations

While a number of conceptual issues have been alluded to throughout this paper,
in this final section they are considered directly. First, as the topic of lying necessarily
involves sequences of behavior, it is important to consider how one responds to both the
past and the future in the present moment (Hayes, 1992, 1998). Moreover, in considering
this issue it is important to highlight the role of verbal behavior; in particular derived
stimulus relations (e.g., L. Hayes, 1992b; S. Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001) and
rule-governed behavior (Hayes, 1989; Skinner, 1969). Second, the topic of lie detection
is considered, highlighting alternatives to Skinner’s analysis of private events (Fryling
& Hayes, 2015) to conceptualize the detection of lies.

Verbal Behavior

Many of the factors that influence lying behavior, both in childhood and
adulthood, do so by way of stimulus substitution (Kantor, 1924) or the more commonly
used “transformation of stimulus function” (e.g., Dymond & Rehfeldt, 2003). While a
consideration of the various interpretations of derived stimulus relations is far beyond
the scope of the current paper, derived stimulus relations are indeed central to the
conceptualization of lying. Individuals increasingly respond to what could be lost or could
be gained as a result of lying, for example, and many of these events are not physically
present in the current environment. Indeed, to the extent that much of what participates
in the lying context is not physically present, it is psychologically present by way of
derived stimulus relations (Hayes, 1992b). Moreover, derived stimulus relations participate
in rule-governed behavior, and indeed, a large amount of rule-governed behavior likely
participates in the lying context. Some of these rules are established early in one’s life,
presumably during childhood, and have a lasting impact (e.g., such as when one avoids
telling lies because they have learned that this is sinful). Alternatively, observing others
lying, especially if those lies are reinforced, probably contributes to the development
of self-rules related to lying (see Fryling et al., 2011).
The functional analysis of rule-following behavior described by Hayes, Zettle,
and Rosenfarb (1989) may be helpful when considering how various rules might be
established and followed, and subsequently targeted in socially important ways. For
example, it may be helpful to establish a pliance repertoire early on, whereby children
learn to tell the truth to avoid being “bad”. Ideally, this rule-following behavior may
evolve into more of a tracking repertoire, whereby the consequences of positive social
relations, cooperation, and more, are experienced. Similarly, as mentioned above children
may develop rules, either through observation or direct instruction, that lying is ok as
long as you are sure you can avoid punishment. It is possible that these rules, once
developed, may be followed well into adulthood.
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Lie Detection

A second conceptual issue relates to the topic of detecting lies. To start, it is

important to reiterate that behavior analysts must agree that lying is something that
someone does, it is obviously behavior. Following from this then, people are not liars,
but rather, people engage in lying behavior. More generally, lies aren’t events that
happen inside individuals either. Indeed, it is well known that the alleged “lie detectors”
don’t actually detect lies, they measure physiological correlates that may be associated
with lies, but also with a range of other things, like feeling anxiety or excitement more
generally (American Psychological Association, 2004). In other words, as one’s heart
rate and other physiological responses change under various circumstances, there is
no one particular physiological correlate of a lie. Importantly, this is not to say that
physiological things are not happening while people lie, but rather, that such physiological
things are not lies themselves.
Consistent with B. F. Skinner’s (1953, 1974) description of private events,
behavior analysts may consider lies to be difficult to detect because they involve private
events. Not all behavior analysts agree with Skinner’s notion of private events, though
(e.g., Baum, 2011, 2013; Hayes & Fryling, 2009; Rachlin, 2003, 2013; see Fryling &
Hayes, 2015 for a comparison and contrast of various positions). The perspectives of
Baum and Rachlin focus on molar analyses, which emphasize conceptualizing behavior
as extended in time. For example, in questioning the notion of private events, Rachlin
commented that (2003) “If a single response is not apparently reinforced, the behaviorist
should be looking for the reinforcer not deeply in the organism, but widely into the
organism’s temporally extended environment” (p. 191). Baum (2011, 2013) also advocates
for a molar perspective, and for the reconceptualization of behavior not as occurring
in moments, but over time. While molecular response patterns have been described in
this paper, the observation of lies seems to require the consideration of molar factors
(at least with observers who do not have particular histories with the target individual,
see below). From this perspective, the difficulty in observing lies has nothing to do
with them being private, but rather, with lies being distinct from many other behaviors
in being extended over time. Molar analyses may be especially helpful when observers
do not have a relational history with the target individual.
Finally, an additional conceptual issue pertains to observing lies when one has
not observed the entire sequence, as when you can see someone lying in the moment
they are lying. In this sense lying is conceptualized as both public and something that
can be seen as it is happening. However, the extent to which an observer can observe
such behavior depends upon a particular relational history with the target individual
(i.e., “the liar”), the topic, and context more generally (DeBernardis, Hayes, & Fryling,
2014). Not all observers will observe instances of lying; again, this is not a matter of
the behavior being public or private, but of the relational history. With specific relational
histories among the observer, the target individual, and the context, however, events in the
current context may develop the stimulus functions of events that are not in the current
context by means of stimulus substitution (Kantor, 1924). Indeed, this alternative means
by which events typically assumed to be private may be observed has been described

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and elaborated upon over the years (Hayes, 1994; Hayes & Fryling, 2009; Fryling &
Hayes, 2014, 2015).
Detecting the lies of a particular individual becomes easier and easier over
time; as the shared history between the observer and the observed is more and more
elaborate (DeBernardis et al., 2014). To be clear, this requires a shared history. Thus,
simply co-existing, or going through situations in parallel is not sufficient (i.e., as in
when one is not paying attention to what the other person is doing). This phenomenon is
often observed with couples who may often know when the other person is lying about
something (e.g., “Are you upset?”; “No.”; “Yes, I can tell you are upset.”). Couples
who are especially attentive and have had a long relationship and experienced many
situations together are especially likely to observe instances of lying. By contrast, lies
may be especially likely to persist with couples where one partner is especially avoidant
or not attending. In this sense the relational history does not develop and detection
becomes less possible.

Conclusion

The current paper considered the topic of lying from a behavior analytic perspective.
In doing so, the unique features of lying as a target behavior were considered, especially
the difficulties in observing lying across the lifespan. In addition, contextual-behavioral
factors influencing the development and persistence of lying during both childhood and
adulthood were identified, and potential targets for prevention and intervention were
highlighted. Furthermore, several conceptual issues related to lying were considered.
When we consider the large and problematic impact of lying in the world and the topic
of corruption more generally, we are reminded of how important it is to address this
topic from a behavior analytic perspective.

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Received, September 15, 2015

Final Acceptance, December 1, 2015

© International Journal of Psychology & Psychological Therapy, 2016, 16, 1 http://www. ijpsy. com